Tsunoshima

Tsunoshima

Native name: 角島
Tsunoshima Island
Tsunoshima ,
Geography
Location	Sea of Japan
Area	4.1 km2 (1.6 sq mi)
Coastline	17.1 km (10.63 mi)
Highest elevation	66 m (217 ft)
Administration
Japan

Tsunoshima (角島^?) is an island located in the Sea of Japan. Located in the north west of Yamaguchi Prefecture, it is a part of Shimonoseki city. The island has an area of 4.1 square kilometers (1.6 sq mi) and has a coastline of 17.1 kilometres (10.6 mi). The island consists primarily of basalt, and is a part of the Kita-Nagato Kaigan Quasi-National Park. As of 28 August 2008, the population of Tsunoshima stood at 907.

Once separated from Honshu, Tsunoshima is now accessible via the 1,780 metres (5,840 ft) long Tsunoshima Bridge, which was completed in the year 2000. At the time it was the longest toll free bridge in the country, though the completion of the Kouri Bridge in Okinawa prefecture pushed it into second place. On the north west of the island is the Tsunoshima Lighthouse, which has come to be the symbol of Tsunoshima. Before the war, Tsunoshima contained a military site of the former Imperial Japanese Army. To this day a part of this still remains.

The whale species Balaenoptera omurai (Omura's whale) was first identified here.

Tsunoshima first appears in the written record in the Nara period (710 – 794). The name of the island appears on a mokkan wooden slip excavated at the site of the Heijō Palace in Nara. The mokkan is dated March 29, 746, and was attached to a tribute of seaweed to the imperial court. A reference to the island also appears in a poem in the sixteenth part of the Man'yōshū, the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry, completed in 759. The Engishiki, a Japanese book of laws and regulations compiled in 927, refers to a ranch on the island, which was then part of Nagato Province. Over time the island was developed for agriculture, as well as supporting a fishing village.